Wave Without a Shore
by Tuulikki
Summary: Nase, the pro exam, and the uncertain future. My fic for Blind Go round 12, where the theme was the New Wave.


**Wave Without a Shore**

An empty go board... such a familiar sight. Asumi Nase kept carefully her eyes on its lines as she knelt down by it, seeking confidence in that familiarity. She heard other people enter the room (she had been one of the first) and someone sat down on the other side of the go board. Slowly she looked up, not wanting to be impolite, and faced the man, a stranger, someone she had seen at the preliminaries, but hadn't played against. The man gave her a short nod, which she automatically returned. Then her eyes wandered back to the board.

This moment, as well, was quite familiar to her. She'd been there before, facing her first opponent on the first day of the pro exam. One could think, perhaps, that experience would have helped her to push away the anxiety. Still, this time was at the same time no different and completely different from the others, and the nervousness flowing inside of her had a new flavor.

She closed her eyes, waiting for the permission to begin, and wondered a thousandth time if there was something, anything she could have said or done differently so that she could have escaped this feeling.

_"Asumi-chan! There you are! My, how you have grown, it's been too long since I've seen you last time! ...you don't mind me still calling you chan, do you, darling?"_

Her aunt's (her father's brother's wife's, to be exact) overly sweet voice echoed in her ears. Was that where the downhill started? When her cousin had finished high school and got a place in one of the best colleges? She'd been happy to go to the party, to meet the relatives she truly saw too seldom, to chat a little with Keiko even though she knew they had very little in common.

Knowing that, perhaps she should have avoided the subject of go when Keiko had asked her what her plans were.

_"_Go? _Why go?"_

The fact that Keiko would ask such a question, so astonished, should have told her that she would not understand. Still she had tried to explain. It's my thing. I'm good at it. I like it... no, love it. Professional go player is the only thing I'd ever want to be. But the confused look hadn't left Keiko's eyes.

She had noticed how Keiko spoke with her mother, who spoke with her husband, who spoke with his brother (_her_ father)... but she'd thought nothing of it. This was a party, and people spoke with each other in parties.

But a week later she'd had a talk with her parents.

_"You've tried three times. You've not been even close to making it. Next year, you'll finish high school. You should start concentrating on your studies instead of go, so that you too can enter a good college."_

She'd looked at her mother for help, but only received a sad look.

_"I'm sorry, dear. I know how important it is to you, but you should think of your future."_

The worst thing was that she knew they were right. She should have been able to make it by now. Still, she'd got their permission to try once more, this one last time. If she failed (again) she would have to come up with something else.

She didn't have a clue what that something else would be.

_If_ she failed. She opened her eyes again, looked at the board. It did no good to start the exam with such thoughts.

_Self-confidence._

Isumi's answer when she had asked him what was the key to making it. _Just do your best in every single game_, Waya had said.

Confidence. Do your best.

"Please begin." The sudden voice made her start. She too muttered her "onegaishimasu" into the quiet murmur in the room. Her opponent played the first move.

Confidence. Do your best.

She saw Isumi and Waya so seldom these days. (Shindou even less often.) She'd went to see them on a day she knew they both would be playing. Once they'd left she'd sat long in the cafe of the Go association, thinking. Confidence? Do your best?

Easy for them to say. They were on their way, rolling onward, perhaps not as fast as some, but nevertheless. _They_ were part of this New Wave people were nowadays talking about. What about her?

Once again she closed her eyes, and she thought of the ocean. Of a big wave, rolling across it. Perhaps she wasn't a part of it. But there were smaller waves, too, in the ocean, countless tiny whitecaps, and they were what made the ocean. She might be one of them, insignificant by the side of that one big wave, but still she was there, she, too, was a part of _go_. And even if her little wave would die out, never reaching its shore... without people like her, there would be no ocean for that big wave to cross.

The shoreless sea still in her eyes, she looked at the board and played her first move.


End file.
